Fostering appreciation of the written word, supporting and educating its creators.

Iron Pen

The Iron Pen Contest

The fastest writing contest in the Quad Cities is back and taking registrations now!

The Midwest Writing Center is taking registrations for its 10th annual Iron Pen Contest. MWC will supply a prompt to all contestants at 5 p.m. on Friday, February 23rd and contestants have 24 hours (entries are due Saturday, February 24th by 5 p.m.) to write and submit their best fiction, non-fiction, and/or poetry pieces. Writers are welcome to enter into as many categories as they like with a paid registration for each entry.

The cost to enter the Iron Pen contest is $10 per entry, per category. Contestant entries will be judged blind in genre categories—Poetry, Fiction and Non-Fiction (please note there is a 2,000 word limit for fiction and nonfiction entries). The Iron Pen contest is open to all ages.

**Everyone that participates in the 2018 Iron Pen Contest will have a chance to win a paid-in-full tuition with a value of $250 for the 2018 David R. Collins Writing Conference in June 28-30 at St. Ambrose University.**

As a new feature for the contest’s 10th anniversary, this year all winners and finalists will have the opportunity to publish their work in the MWC’s annual Writers Block e-magazine, which will be released at MWC’s annual meeting in May 2018. Winners and finalists will also have the opportunity to publisher their work on the MWC website.

Contest Timeline:

On Friday, Feb. 23rd at 5 p.m. contestants will receive an email from the MWC that includes: a topic, an opening line, or a specific character. The prompt will also be announced on our website www.mwcqc.org and on the MWC voicemail message.

On Saturday, Feb. 24th, contestants must email or bring their work to the Midwest Writing Center no later than 5 p.m.

The winners of this 24-hours contest will be announced by email on Wednesday, Feb. 28th. Awards will be given out on Saturday, March 3rd at 2 p.m. at the Midwest Writing Center, where the winners in each category will receive medals, and the winners and finalists will be invited to read their work.

On September 8, 2011, MWC passed the following resolution to abide by the principles and practices of the Iowa Register of Accountability:

“The Board of Directors of Midwest Writing, in a regular meeting at which a quorum was present, reviewed the Iowa Principles & Practices for Charitable Nonprofit Excellence. We, the Board of Directors, hereby affirm that our organization already is committed to being guided by the Principles and Practices and is actively engaged in good faith efforts to meet each of them.”